Saturday, January 23, 2016

My Cuppa: Blending bonanza brew 1!

A couple of months ago, I had attended a tea blending session at T-Buds where we learned how to create a few mixtures using various ingredients. As I stated in my post on that event, blends need some time to mingle before you can get a good reading on their aromas and tastes. I think sufficient time has passed, so I’m ready for a tasting!

I’m going to begin by tasting what ended up being called “Seduced by Sencha”. Yeah, part of the blending session was for each group to come up with names for our products. This blend contained the following ingredients:

Sencha Tea

Orange Peels

Safflower

Calendula

Dried Papaya Fruit

Dried Pineapple Fruit

Coconut Shreds

Piña Colada Essence

Sencha, are you trying to seduce me?

A lot of ingredients, yes, but, we were informed by our host that some items in blends are for visual purposes only, while other items just give blends some body. For some ingredients, you will get their scents and flavours, however, the key is to keep the amounts of these items used to a minimum. The central character is always the tea. Learning this, I think “Seduced by Sencha” was blended quite well. The dry leaves still had the normal grassy aroma of Sencha. However, there was also a light candy-like aroma.

I prepared this blend using my usual directions for Sencha. The appearance of the liquor produced was no different from pure Sencha, not that I was expecting a colour change due to the various ingredients used in this blend. However, there was a change in aroma and taste. Just slightly. The grassy notes of Sencha were definitely there, but I could also detect the coconut shreds and the piña colada essence. I also found each sip had a creamy feeling, which I rather liked.

Seduce me!

Not a bad blend at all! I will definitely be finishing off “Seduced by Sencha”. I was a little worried I might be throwing out or giving away these mixtures. One down, three more to go!

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Coffee, Tea or Me?

The Teaologist

I am a lifelong tea drinker and a Certified Tea Sommelier! I’m also a globetrotter, an avid runner, and a big foodie. I’m a pretty private person so setting up this blog is a big step for me to expose myself, though it is centred on tea. It also gives me a chance to re-discover my creative side through writing, photography, and even cooking. I also have a very quirky sense of humour and will joke on just about anything! Really, I'm a bit of a goofball!